Second Look - Beautiful Katamari (+ DLC)

As the Katamari series continued to show success, a new console game was made following the handheld Me & My Katamari. In a departure from previous titles which were on the PlayStation family of systems, this new game, Beautiful Katamari, was released exclusively for the Xbox 360; the intent was to go multiplatform, however only the Xbox 360 version ever got made. After mainly sticking with the PlayStation line for the longest time, since it has most of the games I want to play, Beautiful Katamari was on my radar when I finally branched out to the Xbox systems, and so I played it once I got the chance. At the time, I did not buy the DLC, which I would later check off my shopping list when the Xbox 360 store was shutting down, but I would not revisit the game again until the announcement of the upcoming Once Upon A Katamari.

As of this writing, I have yet to resolve some issues I have been having with my Xbox 360, so it was fortunate that I was able to play this game again, DLC included, on the Xbox Series X as part of the backwards compatibility program, though I will admit to playing with a DualSense through a converter to make it more comfortable for me to play. On my most recent playthrough, I liked it more than I remembered, though my feelings remain mixed.

Me & My Katamari

With the success of We Love Katamari on the PS2, it was natural for Namco to want to capitalize further on the Katamari brand with or without Keita Takahashi’s involvement. In a first for the series, Namco proceeded without him for a new entry made for the PSP, Me & My Katamari, in 2005. Regardless of its issues, the PSP was my handheld of choice for many years and helped get me through high school, with this game being part of my library since I was obsessed with the series at the time. With the announcement of Once Upon A Katamari on modern platforms, I decided to take another look at this game on another save file, though I was surprised to see that I hadn’t played it since 2010. While I would still consider the game to be pretty fun, enough time has passed that its flaws stand out more to me through fresh eyes.

Tron: Ares

Note: This review contains spoilers for Tron: Legacy.

About fifteen years after the release of Tron: Legacy, and coincidentally about fifteen years after the start of this blog, Tron fans finally witnessed the release of a third film, Tron: Ares. Although Legacy director Joseph Kosinski had plans for a sequel, which would have been known as Tron: Ascension, it entered development hell due to a combination of Tomorrowland bombing at the box office and Disney’s buyouts of Lucasfilm and Marvel, though the company never outright cancelled it. Around 2017, plans shifted to the Jared Leto-led sequel that we have now, with a different writer (Jesse Wigutow), director (Joachim Rønning) and composer (Nine Inch Nails) to boot. As a fan of the franchise, I felt hyped going in despite the chosen lead, as I simply felt glad that Disney gave us more Tron at all. However, now that I’ve actually seen Ares, in IMAX 3D no less, I can happily say that although it’s not the best written installment, it was well worth the fifteen-year wait.

Tron: Catalyst (PC)

Two years after the release of Tron: Identity (Identity), developer Bithell Games would return to the Tron franchise with a new game, Tron: Catalyst (Catalyst), as part of the greater buildup to Tron: Ares. Since there was a general drought of Tron content at the time of the announcement, I was excited for it in part due to liking Tron: Identity, but bought it after it came out as part of a Steam sale and only recently got around to it. While the gameplay may be different, the storytelling remains one of the developer’s strong points and made me invested in seeing more.

Stubs - The Sound of Music

The Sound of Music (1965) starring Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Eleanor Parker.  Directed by Robert Wise. Screenplay by Ernest Lehman, with the partial use of ideas by Georg Hurdalek. Based on the musical The Sound of Music, music by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, and originally produced on the stage by Leland Hayward, Richard Halliday, Richard Rodgers, and Oscar Hammerstein II (New York, 16 Nov 1959). Produced by Robert Wise. Run time: 172 minutes. Color. Musical, Drama, Romance

In 1965, 20^th Century Fox put out a movie that would not only help it recover from the $30 million loss on Cleopatra (1963), but would go on to be, for a time, the highest grossing film of all-time. By all standards, except for some early reviews, the film was wildly popular and a runaway hit. I remember it playing at my local theater for a year; unheard of today.

The movie is based on the musical that started its run in 1959. The musical’s narrative was derived from Maria Augusta von Trapp’s 1949 autobiography, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers. At that time, the book had already been made into two popular West German feature films directed by Wolfgang Liebeneiner, Die Trapp-Familie (1956), and its sequel, Die Trapp-Familie in Amerika (1958). The Broadway musical saw $2,325,000 in advance sales and ran from November 16, 1959 to June 15, 1963.

Paramount Pictures had optioned rights to Die Trapp-Familie, and approached Vincent J. Donehue, the musical’s Broadway director, about directing an American version, starring Audrey Hepburn, but Donehue advised the studio not to, “You can’t possibly make it as a movie, you’ve got to let it go; the way to do this is a musical for Mary Martin.” Paramount dropped its option when Hepburn wasn’t available.

Stubs - Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale

Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale (2025) starring Hugh Bonneville, Jim Carter, Michelle Dockery, Paul Giamatti, Elizabeth McGovern, Penelope Wilton. Directed by Simon Curtis. Screenplay by Julian Fellowes. Based on Downton Abbey by Julian Fellowes. Produced by Gareth Neame, Julian Fellowes, Liz Trubridge Run time: 123 minutes. Color. United Kingdom. Historical Drama

Like all good things, the Downton Abbey universe has come to an end in a fitting way with Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, the third in a trilogy of post-television films. For people, like myself, who have watched the series and the first two films, this final film is a great culmination for a franchise that started on British television in 2010.

Death Stranding 2: On the Beach

Note: This review contains spoilers for Death Stranding.

Although Death Stranding (DS1) originally launched to mixed reception, Hideo Kojima considered creating a sequel to further establish the “Strand” genre. As it turned out, development had started when Kojima had written the story prior to 2020, but the way the COVID-19 pandemic had impacted the world made him decide on a rewrite. Since then, he rewrote parts of the story again in response to positive reception from test audiences, fearing that he had created something too mainstream. The final game launched in June 2025 on the PS5, this time to more positive reception, with the name Death Stranding 2: On the Beach (DS2).

When DS1 came out, I felt like I was in a minority that liked the game in spite of its flaws, but I could still recognize the issues that had turned so many away during its initial release. As such, I liked that more people eventually came around on the game following its PC port, then more excited when I learned about the development of DS2. It should be no surprise, then, that I had been playing the game whenever I could since launch day, pouring as much time as I did before (about 50 hours) until I reached the credits. Where I found the original a flawed, but solid step forward for Kojima Productions, DS2 manages to go above and beyond as an example of a sequel outshining the original in almost every conceivable way.